


god's wheel

by chagrin



Series: (interlude) to the apocalypse [4]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Baggage, Gen, nah i don't even know anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 14:29:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1269928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chagrin/pseuds/chagrin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(If you want a happy ending, it all depends on where you stop telling your story.)</p>
<p>December 21, 2013.</p>
            </blockquote>





	god's wheel

.

_Goodbye, Dad._

.

Desmond’s still smiling.

Perpetually smiling in that Polaroid snapshot, a solstice blister of a grin out-of-season, unrepentantly sharp, boasting inaudibly at his latest exploit — clearing the freerunning course in five minutes flat, no scrupulous goading necessary. _(Did’ja see_ that _?! If Mom’s making lasagna for dinner, I’m doubling my portion.)_

Worn-out sneaker heels kicked up against the chain-link fence outside their compound, one sweatshirt sleeve haphazardly snagged on the metal (he held an inclination for hoodies even prior to his desertion, as if ad-libbing his sartorial choices was the status quo for common vagrancy), and the corners of his mouth were turned-up before the camera, beaming widely. He was eleven then, not quite hardened into the cynic who pooled his lots into the probability of a future without a backbone, sustained solely by patron tabs at his shitty bar and second-rate apartment complexes, a vagrant in every sense of the word.

Earnestness could undo people, however, unravel any false sense of bravado, the dismally incontrovertible notion of honesty underlying every parable. Even Bill understands that beyond any self-induced escapism, there was a never a way to refute the delineation between contrition and resignation. In layman’s terms, he could never deny the blatant truth, solidified on the precipice, in the no-man’s land occupying awake and asleep.

_Desmond was his son._

Twenty-five years of repressed animosity before Desmond was martyred into being their veritable savior. He was a convergence of faulted hopes and out-of-sync timelines all wrapped up in a Messianic cautionary tale where the hero dies for their noble war, where the hero doesn’t even have a sense of _religion_ so much as the sticky subterfuge of a _prayer_ to save them all lining his palms as he dies alone, _alone_ , and it’s —

— _just another chapter in this endless story. And it’ll be your job … and Mom’s, and — and Shaun’s and Rebecca’s, to keep turning the pages._

(Remember to laugh, as if there’s hope scripted into the story.)

His phone rings, and Bill doesn’t bother giving it a passing glance in lieu of vehemently hurling it across the room where the screen _s-shatters_ , blinking in-and-out in distorted syncopation, briefly illuminated.

` 12. 21. 2013.`

This was a fair trade. Contractual fulfillment. Raise his son to die for the greater good; he understood the terms all along, right? If not a prophecy, then an aimed bullet; if not martyr, then a casualty of war. Assassins were known for their limited life-spans, for their short-circuited deaths in the name of being some contrived paragons of sacrifice. 

His shoulders won’t stop shaking.

After all this time, it would be better to heal, to smile back at the boy in the picture. He’d been waiting for so long. That wouldn’t do. Desmond wouldn’t stand for that. He never was a patient kid to begin with, and if he saw his old pop on the verge of tears, he’d be more prone to make contrived jabs to cheer him up, rather than offer condolences. 

_Late afternoon at the bare periphery of the Farm, adjacent to the old sycamore. Penitent Desmond, only a boy, head bowed, fingers and wrists scabbed over in scratches from roughhousing with another child over the proprietary rights of a_ pudding cup _, of all things. (You were right, Dad. I was being an idiot. I’m sorry. As your son, I should know better. I won’t do it again.)_

And that, _that_ is the point where he scoops him up and forgives him once again, because being Desmond’s father and making amends mattered more, so much _more_ than being his Mentor. 

The recollection strangely threatens to undo his resolve. 

.

_Goodbye, Dad._

.

Death is a funny thing, visceral and empty, a paradox of a contradiction (365 days to account for, and the pain is still as incapacitating as the initial shock). 

For the longest time, there’s only silence, his cell’s alarm extinguished at last with a dimming cry of digital metronome. Bill meticulously folds the photograph back, once, twice, three times, then neatly tucks it back into his wallet. It’s only then that he registers the stinging pinprick of grief obscuring his vision. It catches him off guard, stemming from some place distinctly detached from the reverberating staccato of his pulse, not a composite of his flesh or his soul, only of debilitated grief, disconsolate and soundless. 

And he turns his gaze to the window to watch the sun aridly melt where it meets the horizon yet another time. 


End file.
